Lawyers have won an emergency stay preventing the deportation of an Ecuadorian immigrant who was handed over to immigration agents after he delivered a pizza to a New York army base. On Saturday, the Legal Aid Society said that an emergency stay had been granted to block the deportation of 35-year-old Pablo Villavicencio, who has two children, after military police detained him and then handed him over to agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on 1 June.
The stay was granted until 20 June by the judge, though the Legal Aid Society says Villavicencio will have to remain in detention until then. The case has been met with outrage both by family members and local officials.
The supervising attorney of the Legal Aid Society’s Immigration Law Unit, Gregory Copeland, says that although disappointed by Villavicencio having to remain in detention, the decision to delay the deportation is a victory for the fair administration of justice and due process as well as for Villavicencio and his family. Ordered to leave the US voluntarily back in 2000, Villavicencio failed to do so, and that then became a final order for his removal, according to a prior statement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Villavicencio filed an application to get a green card in February, which is still pending, according to his wife. Copeland says the court agreed that Villavicencio had the right to present a full and fair case in federal court.